Mexicans could stay in Mexico and fix their own corrupt government. But n-o-o-o-o! We have greedy business owners and open borders idiots that want them to import their social ills, disease and politics here.

Robert, I hope your grandchildren will enjoy their life in the third-world country the U.S. will become.

A pox on all your houses!

Maybe if you lived in a border state (or even one of the western states NEAR the border), where illegals make up a large percentage of the jail population, where illegals are responsible for most of the illegal drugs smuggled in, and where in general all of the ill affects of illegal immigration are far more readily apparent, you might see what all the fuss is.

But that's not your back yard, is it?

Yeah I was squishy too until I read about the percentage of Illegals who commit crimes in the US. I too sympathize with the families who live in onerous countries and want to come to the US. I support streamlining our immigration process. What I cannot support is the wholesale sellout of the citizens of this country to the demands of other nations. Mexico should not be able to tell us what we can or can not do on our own border. If a nation cannot defend and secure its borders it is no longer soveriegn.

BNS - you forget that I grew up in San Antonio, so got many years' practical education in border politics in all its aspects. Indeed, most of what I'm hearing now I was hearing 25 years ago. (The security terror back in the day was that Mexico would suddenly become a Soviet client state and the Reds would invade by way of Laredo.)

I'm not denying there's a problem and I'm sure it's worse now than it was then. But that doesn't take away from the root causes of my ambivalence about the proper solution.

You LIVED there. "Worse" doesn't begin to cover the changes since then. As for the "Reds invading", that may never have happened, but the numbers of violent crimes committed by illegals, the gang and drug connections, are very real. A couple of articles you might find interesting:

http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html#Illegals

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_illegal_alien.html

As for your ambivalence, may I remind you that most of the people involved in the Fort Dix incident entered this country ILLEGALLY. Yes, there's a war on, and our need to secure our borders is vital to that war, "fer chrissakes". No, I don't want to leave it to the Donks, but when it comes to border security, there's no damned difference between leaving it to one party or the other.

I haven't been able to muster much indignation over the whole thing, either. I'm also thinking the effects will be overstated -- who is going to pay a $5,000 fine and wait 8 years just to become a second class citizen, when there are plenty of enablers helping them to get by in the tax free underground economy? I think about 50 will take us up on the offer.

That being said, I'm simultaneously for machine gun nests on the border coupled with a blanket amnesty. Anything short of either just doesn't seem like much of a fix.

Well, I'll put my two cents in here.

What we have here are a few stubborn facts that act as constants in the equation.

1) Illegal Immigration is an issue that has to be dealt with. How we deal with it is really what's fueling the debate. Republicans and Democrats can pontificate all day in front of an empty chamber on C-SPAN but we need to do SOMETHING.

2) Like it or not, this is a 50-50 nation and either side is at the mercy of the mushy middle's often ill-informed lack of conviction one way or the other.

3) Any law regarding immigration that passes today (assuming it can pass intact) is subject to alteration in the very near future.

4) Any law regarding immigration that passes today (assuming it can pass intact) will suck in many ways because the Congress is in no way united on the make-up of the solution.

5) Many on this issue are rightly pissed off but the solution is not merely to pound your fists and refuse to vote in 08.

6) The political make-up of Congress is not set in stone. The chance of it changing hands in today's political climate is a real possibility every two years (unlike in generations past where a party could reasonably expect to hold on the the legislature for decades).

7) The one thing that can change #2 is for the constituents of one party to sit on their hands on election day and present the opposition with a golden opportunity.

8) If Democrats hold/strengthen their control of Congress in 08, it will lead to an unmitigated disaster in more areas than just immigration - the War against Islamofascism, Taxation/fiscal spending, the Courts, etc. etc. etc.

So the solution (if you feel that strongly about this issue) is to start now - grassrootswise - to try and get candidates for the House and Senate (and the Presidency) who believe as strongly as you do in the way to deal with this that you most believe in. On election day, regardless of the success for failure of your efforts to get the candidate of your choice, vote GOP.

Get back the Congress, the Senate, hold the White House. Without that power, what else can you do?

When the founders negotiated the Declaration of Independence, they had to decide whether or not such a document that advocated that all men were created equal was compatible with half the new nation engaged in slavery. If those opposed to it were so entrenched in their position as to insist the some of Jefferson's original passages remain intact, the effort to declare independence would have crumbled.

Without a United States there would have been no end to the practice. So what good would it have been for certain members of the Continental Congress to remain inflexible. First thing was first then - Independence was the primary issue.

First thing's first here, too, we need a government committed to fighting this enemy, and the Democrats are not committed (though many should be). If we lose this war we lose this country. What difference will it make that illegal immigrants are pouring over the borders?

Oh, and Robert, please explain to us how well the amnesty of 1986(another Teddy Kennedy jewel)stemmed the flow of illegals into America. We were promised enforcement then, as well.

Jeez, the guy's 40 all of one day and already he sounds like Professor Kingsfield!

Ultimately, what really irks me is the "Just to show the GOP what I think of its immigration "compromise", I'm gonna sit on my hands and let Hillary! & Co. take over next year, see if I don't," rhetoric. Given everything at stake right now, that's just crazy talk.

The temper tantrum of 2006 led directly to this. Anti-immigration people had a GOP Senate and House. They could have swallowed some things and made an acceptable deal. They choose to kill any potential compromise and then sat on their hands and helped deliver a Dem majority Congress. Because thay were mad at pork or Arabs running ports or Harriet Miers or some other fool thing.

George Bush has been pushing for this since 1999. Now people are "shocked" about how he "betrayed" them. They should have paid some attention.

This bill still has a long way to go. Lots of Dems don't like it too. It can maybe be killed but then what? Stay home or vote Libertarian to "punish" GOPers in Congress. Stay home and let a Dem get elected President? Form a third party?

What kind of immigration bill will pass with 250 Dems in the House and 56 in the Senate and a Dem President?

My advice is to stop screaming and try to get a slightly better bill. Then, recruit some favorable primary candidates where you have a chance of nominating them. Then vote the Dems out, even if you have to swallow some "traitors" like that well known leftist Jon Kyl. In other words, act like rational political actors and not children.

If I were ever to be a single issue voter, it would be over the GWOT, not immigration. Unfortunately, my vote doesn't count, because I live where Patrick Kennedy is my congressman. Ugh, its reflexively bluer here than almost anywhere else.
But on immigration, I'm for sending them all back. Why do we have laws and what does it say to the law abiding - citizen and legal immigrant alike - when the immigration laws are so easily and thoroughly flouted?
I do not want immigration shut down, either. I want legal immigrants with skills and/or resources. These are the criteria used by our morally superior Canadian neighbors and they attracted a pretty good chunk of HK emigres as a result. Like many engineers, I have worked with a fairly polyglot group of coworkers. As long as many American citizens are dumb as a sack of hammers when it comes to technical matters, we will need to continue attracting other countries' technically best and brightest. BTW, this is an apolitical observation, as on various parts of the domestic political spectrum we have those who believe that dinosaurs were on Noah's Ark and others who follow the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Warming. None of these folks inspire confidence in their ability to think critically. I want my kids and eventually grandkids to grow up in a country that isn't falling behind and has the wherewithal to take care of itself, hence I support legal immigration of the skilled and resourceful.

I think we all need to take a deep breath here and acknowledge that Robbo is a Depends wearing commie who likes to parade around in women's clothing.

Tongue in cheek (sorta) rant alert/

One of the reasons I have no kids is because I think the US is doomed. Sure, those who inherit the future are those who show up for it, I just don't think there will be anything worth showing up for. The US used to be great, now it's just like 300AD Rome: Great military legacy, but that will fall apart in due time. Just as soon as the troops wake up to the fact that there isn't anything worth fighting for any longer because the country is spiritually rotten to the core.

The US is a monument to everything Christ came to get rid of: legalism and legalistic bull-puckey (AKA "The Rule of Law" bullcrap). The US was founded by lawyers, so predictably, it has become a government of the lawyers, by the lawyers, and for the lawyers. It's disgusting. There is no problem on earth that lawyers aren't at the root of. So, let's let the lawyers make the laws and be the judges. Yeah: Let a class of mediocre-by-definition scumbags make the rules, judge the rules, and use the police for their muscle. That's the ticket. Right there.

Shakespeare wasn't joking, and he was right. Lawyers are the lowest form of human excrement on earth, as well as the most corrupt (Though the police try to keep up, but they are too stupid to really compete). Lawyers will eliminate the freedoms in a society in direct proportion to how much that society tolerates them. Look at ancient Israel: The "scribes" (Spiritual antecedents to the lawyers of today) burdened the people with law upon law until it all fell apart. Hell, the US not only tolerates lawyer-scum, the US lets them make the rules, judge the rules, and use the police as their muscle to enforce the rules. Great idea (I say "rules" because one of the greatest of all lawyerly conciets is that man can make laws: Only God can make laws; man only makes rules made to be broken and fined as a source of government revenue).

Politics is plenty enough proof of everything I've said. The lawyer-politician-scum-sucking-maggots-out-of-hell are doing their gosh-darndest to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. I'm betting they succeed: Lawyers killed ancient Israel, ancient Babylon, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome; so why should they fail this time? They won't.

/TIC rant

Robert, no tar and feathering from me. I agree with you. This is a bad deal, but the raging hysterics isn't helping matters.

I was in Yakima, Washington for Vincente Fox's visit. I joined the Grassroots on Fire demonstrators along the motorcade route. We Americans waving American flags were yellow-taped by the police 75 feet back from the road in a muddy field. Mexican's waving the Mexican flag were allowed on the sidewalk. Other outrageous things happened and we were treated with total disrespect by the local police when we asked for help. Not long before that it was May 1st when Mexican demonstrators gathered in our downtown area. I can assure you that if American citizens waving American flags had confronted them in the aggressive manner that the Mexican's had confronted us during the motorcade event that those American's would have found themselves rounded up by the police and more likely then not accused of hate crimes. There is so much crime in Yakima now that police just take reports of car thefts and break-ins, etc. over the phone and don't follow up or investigate because they don't have the manpower (or just don't care).

This may sound blah, blah, blah... But when you watch Mexican's heckling and being aggressive directly in the face of a USA military veteran, when you see the frustration and anger on his face when the police are standing close by and do nothing, then it becomes real and heartbreaking.

"...conservatives now threatening to take a dive over this issue and allow Hiliary & Co to take over next year are talking dangerous crazy."

George Bush schmoozed with Vincente Fox in Mexico and called the Minute Men at our borders, vigilantes. Then he infers that we are a heartless nation that forces illegal immigrants to live in the shadows. Illegal immigrants get advantages from various local, state, and federal agencies that my hard working family, friends and neighbors can never hope to have. I am embarrassed to have voted for President Bush in last election. I will NEVER vote for the lesser of two evils again. I WILL vote for the best man or woman and let the chips fall where they may!

(Boston.com) "The Bush administration insisted on a little-noticed change in the bipartisan Senate immigration bill that would enable 12 million undocumented residents to avoid paying back taxes or associated fines to the Internal Revenue Service, officials said.

An independent analyst estimated the decision could cost the IRS tens of billions of dollars.

"It is important that the reformed immigration system is workable and cost efficient," Stanzel said. "Determining the past tax liability would have been very difficult and costly and extremely time consuming."

How difficult and costly has it been for American citizens to have subsidized these people while they've been here? Do we legal citizens not have to worry anymore about back taxes because it is too time consuming for the IRS to track us down, investigate and prosecute?

I actually straight-out asked a dental office if the same dental work my daughter needed would have been covered if she were an illegal alien. The receptionist said yes, there are "programs" that would cover the cost if she were an illegal alien.

And, yes, I have an ax to grind.